The Closer: ''Slippin'''Review

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With her mother still in town, Brenda investigates an apparent gang shooting.

By Robert Canning

On her day off, Brenda and Fritz are taking Mama -- still visiting her daughter from last week's episode -- on an apparent self-guided "death" tour of famous Hollywood homes. Their fun is interrupted, however, when Brenda gets word from Sergeant Gabriel of a priority homicide in Los Angeles' gang district, forcing her to leave Fritz and Mama alone together for the rest of the day. She shares her reservations with Sergeant Gabriel who insists her mother will be fine. Brenda replies, "It's not my mother I'm worried about."

At the crime scene, the bodies of two black USC students, male and female, are dead inside a bullet-riddled black SUV. A third white female has been transported to an area hospital. All signs point to a gang-related shooting, except that Commander Taylor happens to know the male victim, Wesley Tallmadge, and "he's no gangster." Taylor then asks Brenda for her best effort in this investigation, as a favor to him. Three episodes into The Closer's second season and Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson and Commander Taylor have not only not been at each other's throats, they've actually been putting their differences aside to work together. Taylor was terrific last year as Brenda's departmental adversary, but so far this season, the writers have yet to utilize that great dynamic.

With the investigation underway, Brenda and Detective Gabriel head to the Tallmadge residence to inform them of their son's death. Brenda gives this task to Gabriel, and preps him along the way for the encounter. It's a great scene that emphasizes the vast skill and knowledge Brenda brings to her squad, and how Gabriel is the young, yet capable apprentice to his chief. Hints of this mentor/master relationship have surfaced throughout the series' run, but it has yet to really become a major focus. It will be interesting to see how much deeper the writers will take us.

Meanwhile, facts start coming together about the shooting and our victims. As far as anyone can tell, the vics have nothing to do with any gang in the Los Angeles area. It's also discovered that the injured third victim was the girlfriend of Wesley Tallmadge. While interviewing Wesley's parents, Brenda learns they didn't know about their son's interracial relationship. It's theorized that their coupling may have been the catalyst for a hate crime. A conversation at the hospital with Wesley's girlfriend sheds more light on what transpired. She recalls that someone from another car was suddenly yelling and swearing at them. As Wesley slowed to let them pass, someone shouted, "This is from everyone!" and the shooting began.

Back at the department, the Priority Homicide Squad continues to work out why these particular people were gunned down. Detective Sanchez reconsiders what Wesley's girlfriend may have heard coming from the other vehicle. Instead of "This is from everyone," he suggests they may have been shouting, "This is from 4-1," or "This is from 8-1," names of two local gangs. Brenda asks if there have been any recent incidents in either of those areas and Detective Tao finds that two weeks earlier there had been shots fired from a moving black SUV in the 8-1 gangland.

At the location of the 8-1 shooting, Sanchez eyes some graffiti spray-painted nearby and is able to decipher a confession. Underneath two names, Pookie and Lil' Devil, are seemingly random symbols which indicate that the 8-1 have taken revenge for the drive-by. A spray-painted "187" indicates it was murder and the letters "USC" with a slash through it links this confession to our victims. Pookie, the hardened criminal, and Lil' Devil, the young, inexperienced gang member, are brought in for questioning and it serves as another great moment for Deputy Chief Johnson to prove why she's called the closer.

With both of the suspects together, she explains how their spray-painted confession has them caught, but she'll need one of them to tell her who pulled the trigger. As she states it, there can only be one driver and one deal. But neither speaks. Anticipating this, Brenda pulls out a quarter and asks one of them to call it in the air. After Lil' Devil claims heads, Brenda takes Pookie into another room leaving the younger gang member to stew. Brenda sits with Pookie for half an hour but doesn't ask him a single question. When she returns to Lil' Devil, she acts like Pookie had hung him out to dry, 'causing Lil' Devil to demand she hear his side of the story. Brenda gets the truth. Lil' Devil was driving when Pookie opened fire on the SUV driven by Wesley Tallmadge. But it wasn't a random shooting. They fired at this SUV because it was the same one that had been involved in 8-1 drive-by shooting two weeks earlier. This is verified when further inspection of the vehicle results in finding a bullet casing.

Brenda again suspects that Wesley was a member of a gang. His parents are brought in to discuss this, but they continue to insist he was not involved in any criminal activity. But it can't be denied that their SUV was involved in the previous shooting. Hoping to exonerate their son, Wesley's mother claims that they and their vehicle were at a restaurant that night. Brenda, in the guise of a night out with Mama and Fritz, goes to the restaurant to check out the Tallmadge's story. After Mama complains about the abundance of valet parking in L.A., Brenda realizes how the SUV became a part of a gang shooting. When she goes to question the valets, one of them bolts, but he's not quick enough to outrun a gang tackle by Brenda and Fritz.

The valet, worn down by one of Brenda's more passionate interrogations, admits to taking the Tallmadge's SUV when a gang member pressured him into a joy ride. It was that gang member who fired on people in the 8-1 area 'causing the retaliation that killed Wesley and the other student.

As always, The Closer took us on a whirlwind of an investigation. What at first seemed like a straightforward gang shooting became much more and the Priority Homicide Squad ended up solving two cases in the process. But this kind of storyline has come to be expected from most crime dramas on the air today. What continues to make The Closer unique are the characters that walk us through these investigations, and most effectively, how Brenda Johnson's personal life coexists with her career. As this episode closes, Mama reveals she is heading back to Atlanta to allow Fritz a chance to finally move in with Brenda. It's a sweet moment of relief for the three characters, but even more so for us at home, as we can look forward to the challenges that are sure to arise from Brenda and Fritz moving into the next phase of their relationship.